China renews Google's operating licence

After months of confrontation with China over the censorship issue, American web search giant Google today said that Beijing has renewed its licence to operate in the world's largest internet market.

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PTI

Beijing

July 9, 2010

UPDATED: July 9, 2010 20:50 IST

After months of confrontation with China over the censorship issue, American web search giant Google on Friday said that Beijing has renewed its licence to operate in the world's largest internet market.

It is still not clear what brought about the turnaround in the rocky relationship between the two sides that had forced Google to shift its Chinese search engine to Hong Kong which had a more liberal environment.

"We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP (internet content provider) licence and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said an e-mailed statement, without giving further details.

It appears that the undertaking given by Google on June 30 pledging to abide by the rules, which included intrusive censors which the search engine had objected to earlier, made the Chinese government to relent.

The licence was renewed in response to an application submitted by Guxiang Information Technology Co. Ltd., the operator of Google.cn, which pledged to abide by the rules.

The application was made "almost at the same time" Drummond posted a blog post, saying Google was committed "not to self-censor."

Guxiang had said it would "ensure the company will provide no law-breaking contents as stated in the 57th statement in China's regulations concerning telecommunications."

The 57th statement, which Guxiang promised to follow, stipulates that any organisation or individual is prohibited from using the Internet to spread any content that attempts to subvert state power, undermine national security, infringe on national reputation and interests, or that incites ethnic hatred and secession and transmits pornography and violence.

According to the official media here, Guxiang promised that all contents provided by it would be subjected to supervision of government regulators.

Google licence was renewed despite, what Chinese officials say, the late filing of the renewal application.

The company appears to have relented as China with over 400 million internet-savvy population is the world's largest internet market. It was reluctant to forgo its 30 per cent market share established over the years.

The Chinese search engine Bidu controls 60 per cent of the market share.

Though it shifted to Hong Kong, Google services were continued to be available in China through Google.com.hk.

Its services are expected to become normal here in the coming weeks.

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